Alan Partridge: Nomad

by Alan Partridge

My feet pound the asphalt, really giving the popular road surface what for.

as if the frightened earth is peeping out at its punisher from beneath a tarmac duvet.

I’m so close I can almost smell the hill’s brow.

I am overcome with a full-body euphoria and I realise I’m celebrating, jumping up and down, arms aloft, like Rambo on the steps of Philadelphia town hall. And then: sandwiches.

I fix my gaze on the horizon, or just past it, lean into the wind and begin to stride towards it, desperate to get there in six minutes to prevent the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge from being simultaneously beheaded with one long sword. I am Alan Partridge. I am under a little pressure but I am focused and happy.

‘WILL THEY BE TAKING ME for lunch? I’ve forgotten my toothpicks.’

A segment of The One Show yesterday evening had looked at heat loss in large houses, making its point using a thermal-imaging camera so that the hot air escaping the roof looked like a red biro leaking ink into an upside-down shirt pocket.

I become angry at the notion of a house losing 11 per cent more heat than it could ever have had in the first place.

I won’t achieve sleep until I’ve assessed the loft insulation myself.

like when the cleaner’s not been and there are only serving spoons left

I hesitate to describe it as an aura because that’s a word generally used by women who work in offices and loudly describe themselves as ‘spiritual’.

‘The song you just heard was “Midnight Train to Georgia”. The Georgia in America, presumably, rather than the failed Soviet state of the same name – where I’m sure the only “midnight trains” you’d find are the ones taking dissidents to death camps! Still, good song.’

(which does sometimes taste of chicken)

I feel something rise up inside me, like a phoenix, but a scaled-down one that fits into a tummy.

I got into the spirit and played a practical joke on Gibson by getting my assistant to phone him during one of his shows to tell him his elderly mother had had a fall. He was all over the place!

I have my assistant plot five routes and then I choose my favourite.

For athletes enjoying a day off, there’s also the chance to head out on safari, where with a fair wind and an experienced guide they might just come across the unforgettable sight of a rhino before it gets shot dead by an American tourist.

‘Swimming’ is an ancient technique in which the coordinated thrashing of the arms and legs provides propulsion through water.

my head popping back up above the water like some sort of benevolent human kraken.

the wrap party for series thirty-eight of Watchdog, the BBC consumer rights show, which I still think should have been called Ombudsman.

HD telly was made for this.

‘Ding, dong!’ I used to love doing that thing where you say ‘knock, knock’ instead of actually doing a knock. But now that other people have started copying me I’ve been forced to innovate. These days I prefer to make the sound of a doorbell. Admittedly, internal doors don’t have doorbells, but any concerns over accuracy are easily overridden by the sheer freshness of the idea.

to show there are no hard feelings, I reply to Greg’s final email with a series of positive emoticons: thumbs-up, applauding hands, bicep flex, ‘perfect’ sign, jug of beer, galloping horse, high-heeled shoe.

My nerves need quashing. Thankfully, I know exactly what to do, and head to the disabled toilet to centre myself with some mindfulness techniques and half a bottle of white wine.

At 2 p.m. I stride into the kitchenette and enjoy my post-show pint of water.

a guy from accounts keeps telling me that he does triathlons, the overall length of most triathlons is about thirty miles. I’m walking over five times that distance, which means my walk is over five times harder than one of his triathlons, and I think any reasonable person would agree with that.

if your name was on the list I kept in a Harrogate Toffee box buried in my garden, then trust me, the die had been cast.

two Thermos flasks (one for tea, t’other for wee)

for a pound a pop, church fete attendees could throw wet sponges at me, similar to the very Old Testament stonings that Jesus supposedly got rid of when he rebranded God as a nice chap.

people in business tend not to have an accent; they just speak much louder than real people.

I shook the tin hard, looking for all the world like Ainsley Harriott at one of his barbecues when he’s had too much punch and gets his maracas out.

‘My nine-year-old is going to be spending his Saturday dropping a hat to raise money for Save the Children.’ Of course he is. He is one!

‘So that’s what IBS stands for! Ian Botham’s Stomach!’ I would have said, but the line only came to me sixteen years later.

I’d just like to find out if I’m going to be on camera so I know whether to pack my good comb.

when Phillip Schofield got the This Morning job, giving his career a shot in the arm like a doctor might give a convulsing junkie who’s got a shit career,

For me, a poem that rhymes is always superior to one that doesn’t, suggesting the author has put in that little bit of extra work.

there’s no stink quite like the stink of Quaver flavouring absorbed into human skin then sweated back out onto bed sheets.

The route, a close collaboration between myself and the AA route planner,

we each have a set of core beliefs that inform the way we live our lives. And one of mine is that you should never cripple an urban transport network.

by providing competitively priced office space to a large corporation, it has turned the land into something of real value to the community, and that gives me great comfort.

as a driver I take great pride in not having killed a single pedestrian in over thirty years behind the wheel.

the only reason a person should be travelling on foot next to a carriageway is if their car has broken down, they’re a sex worker or they’re walking in the footsteps of a close relative, such as a father.

(Technically, ‘thank ye’ is Elizabethan but most people will still understand it, with the possible exception of tradesman and those, if any, who deny the existence of history.)

you’re on a bus or a train, it’s important that you still take part in this. I’ve taken the time to create the demonstration, so if you don’t participate you’re disrespecting me and you have no class.

Meanwhile, for those of you on crowded public transport who chose not to say the words aloud, you’ll feel no different, and that’s your own fault because, as I say, you lack class and are assholes.

Once, after a few too many long iced teas at a BBC cocktail party, I promised to give Eamonn Holmes a fireman’s lift back to his car, but my knees buckled before he’d even climbed on. I claimed it was an old squash injury, but I think I was just scared.55

This is the same woman I once caught raising her hand when she wanted to make a bid on an eBay auction.

Tony claimed it was my fault but I believe it was his. The lights had gone to green, so technically (perhaps even legally?) he should have pulled away. But did he? No, because he was too busy picking food out of his teeth.

I must look like an alien foetus, about to emerge from its birthing sac, albeit a sac adorned with the face of Buzz Lightyear.

non-electric toothbrushes are so lame. FML, they blow. They suck serious shit.